infraction: on 19 June, DeWitt Clinton wrote to Madison regarding “serious aggressions” committed by the officers of the Cambrian against “our national rights,” and enclosed correspondence with British consul Thomas Barclay, health officer Dr. John R. B. Rodgers, and Lieutenant John Squire of the revenue cutter service. These letters described an incident between the Royal Navy and American port officials in New York. On 17 June, the Cambrian had stopped the Pitt, a British merchantman, in the narrows between Staten Island and Brooklyn and impressed a part of its crew. During the impressment in American waters, health and revenue officials attempted to board the Pitt in order to carry out the quarantine laws of the port, but were physically rebuffed by the crew of the Cambrian. In addition to this violation of American sovereignty, these officers were also verbally insulted with “d—n the Cutter, the Revenue officers, and the United States!” On the same day as TJ’s cabinet meeting, Madison summoned Anthony Merry to account for the actions of the Cambrian (New York Republican Watch-Tower, 20 June; Madison, Papers, Sec. of State Ser. description begins William T. Hutchinson, Robert A. Rutland, J. C. A. Stagg, and others, eds., The Papers of James Madison, Chicago and Charlottesville, 1962- , 39 vols.; Sec. of State Ser., 1986- , 11 vols.; Pres. Ser., 1984- , 8 vols.; Ret. Ser., 2009- , 3 vols. description ends , 7:332-4, 349, 353, 357-60, 369).